


Happiness in the Hay

by BellJarred



Category: Howl's Moving Castle - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 19:26:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5139722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BellJarred/pseuds/BellJarred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You, [First Name] [Last Name], were but an impoverished peasant girl who spared more allegiance to self-survival than to her heart. Thus, when your family’s livelihood was threatened by the repercussions of war, it was only natural that you’d show more concern for the crops than for the trivialities of courtship and the frivolous pursuit of happily ever-after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happiness in the Hay

**Author's Note:**

> As copied from my Lunaescence: I know that you lot are apt to avoid Author’s Notes like the plague, but this one is particularly important in accordance to addressing all “WTF” style questions you may mentally be imposing upon me right now or in the future.  
> I know what you guys are thinking, “Turnip-head? There’s hardly room for a relationship to develop what with the fact that he’s, well, hay on a stick…” and you guys are probably right about that. Recently, though, I’ve been reading a bunch of really excellent HMC fan fiction and have decided that whilst I wanted to write my own, it would hardly be fair to steal the spotlight from Sophie, you know? There are just some canon pairings that I can’t bear to break up. Due to the fact that there is even less character development for Turnip-Head in the novel than in the movie, I’ll be sticking with the film adaption just for him. Besides, I always thought ol’ TH was kind of a cutie when his curse was lifted. He’s all, “BAM! I’M A PRINCELY BABE, AND HERE YOU THOUGHT I WAS AN UGLY ASS TURNIP ON A STICK!”  
> Anyway, I’d like to say that this series will be short and finished quickly like “Reasons,” but I know better than to assume that. This is take-off on a Studio Ghibli adventure, and so it’s only fair to give you lot a fully-furnished fairy-tale with your very own “Prince Charming.” Thus, whilst the film will be my inspirational basis, it’s likely that I’ll include novel tidbits like Martha’s existence, perhaps.  
> Needless to say, when it comes to Prince!TH I’ll be taking some creative liberties. From what I can observe from the film’s conclusion, he’s an upbeat, somewhat naïve cutie-pie with the best of intentions. Thus, I’ll be taking those cues and working to make him the sort of prince you’d expect a teenager susceptible enough to get turned into a dorky scarecrow to be.  
> Also, I know that the title is as cheesy as a Dorito’s Locos Taco, but I wanted it to be as such. All the Ghibli films are given lengthy, iconic titles that would be otherwise awkward if not adorned with the Miyazaki stamp of approval. I wanted this to have the same sort of magical feeling, even if it’s only the verbose musings of a nobody college kid.  
> Disclaimer: I do not own anything in accordance to Howl’s Moving Castle. The novel series is accredited to Diana Wynne Jones and the film adaptation is a Studio Ghibli gem. Thank you, Hayao Miyazaki!

 

  
** Chapter One: Overdressed **

“ _An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered_.”  
-Gilbert K. Chesterton

*~*

It was sheer happenstance, you supposed, that the prayers of your family would have been answered so abruptly and in so unexpected a manner. If it could have been proven otherwise that there was a consistency to the system of call-and-response religious pleadings — that is to say, if the tribulations of daily life could always be alleviated with something as simple as a compulsory beseeching followed by a morning stroll, then, perhaps, your folks would be in a bit better shape by now.

Pleading with a deity was not something any of you were proud of. After all, you were the [Surname(s)], and that entitled you to a lineage of hard work, self-sufficiency, and cantankerousness. It was only upon being pushed to an absolute breaking point that a [Surname]’s disposition even began to encroach upon the territory of humility. Thus, it was a sure-sign of hard times indeed when one could catch a [Surname] asking for help.

Fortunately, the hardship of survival was not isolated to your family alone. In fact, it was certain that what was felt in the rural outskirts of the kingdom were only ripples of the ill-fated waves attempting to erode the fair city of London. In retrospective, perhaps the privation your kinship endured really was to be preferred over the living conditions behind Suliman’s walls.

The kingdom in which you owed your allegiance was in a state of complete and utter turmoil. Political fires, fueled both by the masterful puppeteering of the King’s Royal Sorcerer and the suspicious disappearance of a neighboring noble, burned brightly. The aesthetics of the land were warped and singed by the introduction of airborne warfare, and the happiness of its people was eclipsed by the grief of soldiers and apprenticing magicians lost in war. Never before had the demand for provisions been so great, and thus a hefty burden was placed on the shoulders of surrounding agriculturists. The harsh requirement for a whopping seventy-five percent of your harvest never waivered and the outcry for fresh, able-bodied recruits was steep.

It seemed as if it was not enough that the livelihood of your farm was endangered and that your three younger brothers, scarcely past adolescence, had been stolen away from home by royal decree, and so the universe saw fit to impose another problem upon your diminished homestead: the crows. You were certain that they had originated from the more urban parts of the kingdom, as beforehand it was seldom that one would encounter such a massive flock congregated in one area. Your father had hypothesized that they had grown in population due to both the abundance of food scraps provided by the wasteful city populace and the lack of natural predation only to be uprooted by the bombs at the start of the war. The avian scoundrels did not have to travel far to find solace in the form of your tasty, tasty crops and thus the possibility of starvation and financial ruin was quickly becoming a reality for your poor family.

When you and your parents had finally broken down and made the decision to ask for forgiveness it had been a small, silent plea at best to any cosmic force that would bother to listen:  _please save us from starvation_. After all, seventy-five percent of nearly nothing did not leave one with the freedom to be picky with salvation. As desperate and as necessary as your pleadings were, though, you were realistic enough to understand the futility of your request. You were but a meager seventeen years old and already so hardened to the world. The glamour of magic and all the promise that it brought with it was lost on you now, even at a point in which it was staring you straight in the face.

It was a sham of a summer morning and you hadn’t expected to find much upon your capriccios voyage into the surrounding wilderness. As it now seemed to be perpetually, the robin’s egg blue of the sky was tainted if not eclipsed by a thick curtain of gray smoke and the green of the earth withered and curled back into itself, desperate to escape from the onslaught of artillery pollution. These days, long walks on the daily were nearly essential to your mental health.

The sun had not yet reached its highest point in the sky when your feet had worn the way through three-fourths of an all-too familiar path. Though the foliage became denser as the trail led on, its sickly pigmentation remained fairly consistent. With such a lifeless backdrop, it was only natural that your eyes would find their way to any available vivacity with apparent ease. It was a pole that piqued your interest, rounded and as healthy a shade of brown as the tree it was first plucked from, as it wiggled ambitiously betwixt two wiry, unruly shrubs.

Your sharp eyes were quick to target its shifting motions and from then on it compelled you with a level of curiosity that was unnatural at best. Having grown up on a farm, you realized at once that inanimate objects were normally inclined to be exactly that —  _in_ animate. Yet, the squirming repetitions of the pole had utterly bewitched you, [First Name] [Last Name], who should have known far better than that.

“I-Is anybody there?” Your voice trembled with apprehension as your feet made a few quavering backtracks towards home. Your pupils nearly swelled to eclipse the whole of your frightened eyes as the pole formulated a nonverbal response, increasing its motions with fervency that practically implored you to notice it.

The enthusiasm behind the gesture served to alleviate some of your former anxieties and so you were the able to address the peculiarity with a tone that commanded a bit more respect. “I’m not sure what kind of game you’re playing,” you began as your hands wound tightly around the edges of ankle-length skirt. “But I’ll have you know that it isn’t very funny or frightening.”

The pole had paused in its wavering long enough for you to finish your indignant speech, and the promptly resumed its wriggling with vigor. Perhaps by this point your blood had reached a fine boil, as any former trepidation was now replaced with absolute contempt for the pole’s unfathomable shenanigans. Quickly, your tatty boots made quick work of crossing the distance between you and the trouble-maker, and before you could really comprehend the consequence of your actions your hands had found their way to the circumference of the ne’er-do-well. A swift, thoughtless tug later had you rethinking the impulsiveness of your actions.

The force behind your movements had been highly unnecessary as the pole yielded little resistance in favor of relocation. Thus, the both of you went soaring backwards into a nearby tree stump. It took you a few moments to recover from your embarrassing tumble, but once you had you could not rule out the possibility of a concussion. Your eyes darted up the length of the pole as it stood now, totally erect and totally attached to something more. The visual cues of a tattered tailcoat led you all the way up the outline of men’s formalwear and to the conclusion of well-accessorized root vegetable. Totally astonished by the discovery, you rubbed furiously at your eyes. It was rather possible that the stress of a kingdom ravished by war had finally gotten to you. Were you  _hallucinating_? You gave the figure a secondary once-over to confirm your suspicions. Yes, what stood before you was indisputable: a spruced up scarecrow made of turnip and hay.

“Why, you’re nothing to worry about at all, are you?” You giggled at the good-natured fellow, immensely relieved to find that he was far from a threat. “Although I dare say, Mr. Hay-man, you’d landed yourself in a bit of a predicament until I came along.”

It was only when the scarecrow bounced out a chipper confirmation (one that very well might have been the poor lad’s best attempts at conveying, “You have  _no_  idea!”) that your worry did return to you. A wiggling pole was something you could have easily written off as the wind, but a scarecrow with a mind of its own was a little harder to explain.

“You’re alive!” You exclaimed as you scrambled behind the safety of the previously inconvenient log. Then, after taking a moment to still your beating heart, you added, “My, what cruel pranks wizards play…”

You certainly hoped that your youngest brother, Thomas, who had inconceivably been blessed with a bit of raw talent for spell-casting was abstaining from such mischievous pursuits under the mandatory tutelage of Madame Suliman. The scarecrow seemed to agree with you wholeheartedly as he bounced about with great fervency.

You eyed the scarecrow warily for a minute, though you now found his presence far from threatening. “Say, Hay-man,” you called to the dapperly dressed fellow. He paused in his motions in order to devote full attention to you. “I don’t suppose that you possess a talent for startling creatures  _other_  than myself?”

Although the permanence of his stenciled smile never faltered, you realized that the variation of its sincerity did. For instance, the warmth that was radiating from the scarecrow was suddenly quite apparent and became easily contagious to you. “It is unfortunate to be burdened with the knowledge of your existence, Mr. Hay-man, but I’m certain still that even a self-aware scarecrow can serve a purpose.”

As the scarecrow encircled your form in some sort of gleeful interpretive dance, your eyed his apparent choice in wardrobe once more. “Although it’s possible that you are a tad too overdressed to serve the purpose of cornfield sentinel.”


End file.
